[Lara]

Let's begin with some of the following assumptions before we begin:

One, Army champ spawns are not going to be "easy" to find.  Players will need to use scouts in RPCSS, collect rumors, and physically hunt for them in game.  Its a really big ass map and finding a handful of Mobs on it isn't going to be easy -- tracking will likely be useful.

Two, It is not our intention for these champ spawns to be defeatedly easily or by a few players.  We will continue to make them more and more challenging as the player base gets closer and closer to max skills and equipment.  How much effort and how many players is part of this discussion.

Three, We recognize that there is always a bell curve on players game mech skills and we can't solve that just by making the mobs harder, other creative ideas to try and level the playing field is going to be necessary.

The Discussion

I have a list of tentative ideas on how to let leaders know if one of their armies has been attacked by players, and some other ideas on how to keep players from continually throwing themselves at a champ until it's defeated.  

I would like other ideas.  Just brainstorm off the top of your head, don't worry if they are "dumb" or not, they might spawn a better idea.  You are welcome to expand on someone else idea, but don't criticize or complain, stay in your own lane, I just need ideas right now, not decisions.  But please don't propose ideas you yourself wouldn't like, LOL.

Mith and I will make a decision after we get a feel for what you guys are thinking.  

Lara's Brainstorm

Runners/Messengers try to break off an attacked army champ spawn and "run off screen".  If they get off screen they teleport themselves to the guild stone to give news of an attack.

A defeated army champ spawn send direct message to the leader via the post.

An attacked or defeated army is added to the Town Criers rumor list but the information is incomplete.

By design, a defeated army champ spawn is considered routed and moves some random hex away.  The location is updated in RPCSS but the champ spawn isn't respawned until after end of turn.  So you can route it, but you can't route it again and again.

Armies set to support and defend should help other army champ spawns in some way.

Players can only take so many game mech deaths before they can't go back and fight the champ spawn again.  I'd like to encourage making plans for attacking army champ spawns to increase rp.

Use the wound system in a limited way to force RP healing up for 24 hours?

Only allow players to resurrect those who have died fighting champ spawns and limit that res to once a day per player, so groups need to seriously plan to bring along enough healers to Rez?

Champ spawns only "drop RPCSS gold bars" to discourage them being farmed for gold and magic items.

[Parchaa]

I really like those ideas and not sure if mine will make sense but here goes..

Make it a true expedition to get at them?

Not sure if its possible to set up -specialized- anti spell fields that would cancel gates and recall within a range of the champs.

No MOTD to land a sizable group right there making it too easy

[PlasticHobo]

As requested - have the armies drop something like  trophy/war spoils ( maybe even with a name date and place of the battle ) upon victory for the house/players to keep as bragging rights / rp tools they can use later. If 1 house has a cabinet full of these things they could bring other leaders in to intimidate and warn them.

[Lara]

If we don't do maximum deaths, we could make it a pretty nasty fame/karma hit and then make the timer to completely tight, like an hour tight, and then it won't respawn for 18-24 or something?

Nir and I like 15 min maximum kill time per pop with a 5 minute breather while runners try to get out, or new people are able to join.  Makes it a 95 minute cycle.

[Rosario]

Expanding on the idea for scouts, perhaps it'd be interesting if allowing more scouts to escape gives out more intel. Something like... First scout escapes and says they're under attack. Second scout maybe says who's attacking. Third scout gives the location. Fourth Scout might even allow guild members to tele to said location to aid the army that's under attack.

Here's another idea. Maybe require high Fame (but not Karma) to initiate attack on an army. If you don't have at least one person there who is "well known" enough to be considered a threat, the army just kinda ignores you. And/Or it could require an RPCSS officer to be there.

[NirAntae]

Per request:
It might be a good idea to require a guild officer to initiate an attack, making it an "official" action rather than just a band of troublemakers, since we've put a lot of effort into steering the conflict and story directly into/through RPCSS

[Cons]

This is very technical but: set a reasonable amount of "fame" on the army mobs, depending on the difficulty, so necromancers can reanimate those into something other then the weakest skeletons.